PRLog (Press Release) – Jan. 3, 2014 – CHICAGO – Contact: Kitty Kurth
Phone: 312-498-9279
Email: [email protected]
The Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation was saddened to hear that the Rwanda dictatorship’s paranoia has claimed another victim. In the past decades, President Kagame has jailed or allegedly had killed dozens of people who have criticized or questioned him.
Last month his justice department sentenced Victoire Ingabire, a former Presidential candidate, to an additional 15 years in prison.
“It is very bad luck to oppose President Kagame,” said Paul Rusesabagina, President of the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation. “I was not shocked to hear the news of the death of Patrick Karegeya. It is not easy to speak out about President Kagame’s human rights abuses.”
The last election season had more casualties than just VIctoire. Another Kagame opponent, Andre Kagwa Rwisereka the Green Party candidate, was found killed, decapitated and quartered.
Rusesabagina continued, “In a Democracy, people challenge one another at the ballot box. Losers go back to their pre-election lives, they are not sent to jail or killed. People in the west praise Rwanda’s economy. What good is a healthy economy when the most of the country is a prison with no freedom and no justice.?”
Other alleged victims of Kagame’s violence include:
Oct 1996: Theoneste Lizinde, MP and former intelligence chief, assassinated in Nairobi, Kenya.
May 1998: Seth Sendashonga, former interior minister, gunned down in Nairobi with businessman Augustin Bugirimfura after challenging Kagame’s human rights abuses. He had previously survived another attempt on his life.
March 2000: Assiel Kabera, former presidential adviser & provincial governor, shot dead in Kigali. Witness said killers wore military uniform.
Dec 2001: Gratien Munyarubuga, founder of opposition party, murdered in Kigali.
April 2003: Leonard Hitimana, opposition politician, murdered in Rwanda.
June 2003: Col Laurent Bangaya, party dissident, killed in Nigeria shortly after Kagame visited the country.
2003: Augustin Cyiza, vice-president of Supreme Court and human rights activist, disappeared in Kigali.
December 2005: Mutilated body of former minister Juvenal Uwiringiyimana found in Brussels
June 2010: Jean-Leonard Rugambage, newspaper editor, murdered in Rwanda
June 2010: General Kayumba Nyamwasa, leading Kagame opponent, shot in stomach during ambush in Johannesburg, where he lived in exile.
July 2010: Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, vice-president of opposition party, found decapitated in Rwandan wetlands.
July 2010: Prof Jwani Mwaikusa, law professor involved in Rwandan genocide case, shot dead in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He blocked case moving to Kigali, arguing defendants would not get fair trial.
May 2011: Rene Mugenzi and Jonathan Musonera, Rwandan dissidents in London, warned by Scotland Yard about Rwandan government hit squads.
Nov 2011: Charles Ingabire, editor of opposition website, shot dead in Kampala, Uganda.
August 2012: Frank Ntwali, witness in case against attempted killers of his brother-in-law General Nyamwasa, survived stabbing in South Africa.
August 2013: Joel Mutabazi, former presidential bodyguard, abducted by armed men in Kampala. He had survived murder attempt previous year. Freed by police. One month later abducted again – and three weeks later appeared in Kigali court.
Jan 2014: Patrick Karegeya, leading Kagame opponent and former head of Rwanda’s external intelligence services, found strangled in South African hotel.
The Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation,http://www.hrrfoundation.org, was founded by Paul Rusesabagina, the real life hero of the acclaimed film Hotel Rwanda.
Rusesabagina, portrayed by Don Cheadle in the film, saved the lives of more than 1200 people during the Rwandan genocide and has been honored internationally for his heroism. The Foundation works to prevent future genocides and raise awareness of the need for a new truth and reconciliation process in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
